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The Wisdom Pocket Blog

Sep 27, 2022

Competing with Thumbnails: Little Crystals, Big Impact

What even is a mineral competition? How do you determine a winner? What makes a mineral ‘competition worthy’? David Tibbits shares his perspective on competitive displays, specifically regarding thumbnail specimens.

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Sep 5, 2022

A New Standard In Thumbnail Storage And Display - Crystal Showcase Boxes

To further assist our customers in enhancing their collections, we're proud to announce our exclusive partnership with OPENALLDAY as the sole North American distributor of their Crystal Showcase™️ boxes, an upgraded way to show off and store your favorite thumbnail mineral specimens. View these Perky Box alternatives.

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Aug 4, 2022

Why “Collector Gems” are Enchanting

Jim Houran, Ph.D., Psychologist, Collector, & Author An intriguing trend has long been apparent to devoted readers of the Mineralogical Record (MR), Lapis, and Rocks & Minerals. Locality articles, like Robinson’s (1990) treatise on diopside from DeKalb, New York, or papers about new species such as Hawthorne et al.’s (2004) description of pezzottaite, frequently include photos of gems cut from the respective minerals. In fact, it is a challenge to read any given issue of these periodicals or any popular mineral book and not find at least one illustration of a polished specimen. The prevalence of these images underscores the universal appeal of gems — even among seasoned mineral collectors who lament the cutting of fine crystals.

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Jul 15, 2022

The Art of Collecting

The team at The Arkenstone has been busy with our recent collaboration with the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History on our RARE EARTH installation, bringing together specimens from the museum, Dr. Lavinsky's personal collection, UCSB's Woodhouse collection, and private collectors. With permission from museum president Luke J. Swetland, we're sharing a bit of a recent article he wrote about his father-in-law (and Arkenstone customer) David Byers.

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Jun 17, 2022

Photo Atlas of Mineral Pseudomorphism

We just received notice that Photo Atlas of Mineral Pseudomorphism will be pulled from the Elsevier publication list due to plagiarism in the main introduction of the text. Intellectual scholarship demands integrity, both of which I hold in the utmost respect. I assisted with photos for the books, and related captions for those photos, and in appreciation of this assistance, I was listed as one of the authors on the publication for this narrow scope of contribution. The portions of the text under scrutiny for plagiarism are from the main text of the book, which were outside the scope of my contribution.

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Apr 23, 2022

Rare Earth: Santa Barbara

Far more than a dazzling display of gems and minerals, Rare Earth tells the story of how we can value the natural world in a new light. Copper may be worth a few dollars per pound, but a beautiful piece in its (remarkable) natural form is worth far more than that. The question is why? We humans inherently assign value to beautiful things above and beyond their utility. It’s why we value impressive minerals like these higher than their price as a mere commodity. Whether it’s a mineral, a tree, or an ecosystem, viewing nature purely in terms of “price per pound” undervalues the resource and deep down, we know it. The minerals and crystals you see here are treasures in their own right, worthy of being displayed (and valued) like any other fine art.

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Mar 28, 2022

Rare Earth: The Art and Science of Chinese Stones

Collecting rocks and stone carvings has been popular in China for thousands of years. This tradition is rooted in the philosophical and spiritual inspiration drawn from the artistic beauty of natural stones, such as jade. Unusually-shaped stones called “Scholars rocks” or “Philosopher’s Stones” carved by natural processes have also been long valued in China. Seen as embodiments of the dynamic transformational processes of nature, these stones were also admired for their resemblance to mountains or caves, particularly the magical peaks and subterranean paradises believed to be inhabited by immortal beings.

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Jan 24, 2022

Legal Nuggets: Fragile Minerals and the TSA

We have all come across a superb specimen, attractively priced, but have nonetheless refrained because there was no easy way to get it home damage-free. What if, however, you do decide to take that specimen home with you on a plane? And what if you carefully wrap it and loosely seal it in a box, with the intent of treating it as carry-on luggage? Of course, from the moment you embark on this course, your mind is dwelling on one thought, and one thought alone—those folks you will encounter at the airport with the badges and patches that say “Transportation Security Administration” or “TSA.”

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Jan 9, 2022

New Year, New Website Update!

We are excited to start off 2022 with the launch of our new and improved website experience, with many changes to freshen up the overall experience for our customers! While at its core, the website remains mostly the same, we’ve reorganized by condensing menus to make navigation easier as well as adding a few new and exciting features to make our website more user friendly for exploring our thousands of listings.

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Jan 8, 2022

Getting to know the mind behind The Arkenstone - Dr. Rob Lavinsky

There are numerous illustrations of the 17th-century phrase, “One good turn deserves another.” By most accounts, it appears Dr. Rob Lavinsky’s life is one such example. The “one good turn” that inspired Lavinsky, owner and founder of The Arkenstone Gallery of Fine Minerals, to take the path he has and mindfully do countless “good turns” in response, took place in Ohio during the mid-1980s. “I was introduced to minerals at the age of 12 through the Columbus, Ohio, Rock & Mineral Society (www.columbusrockandmineralsociety.org/), and was fortunate to have many generous mentors there,” said Lavinsky.

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